Tuesday, July 07, 2009

My Favorite Batman

Wouldn't it be cool if they ever animated a Batman show in Bob Kane's style? (Like at the beginning of the 60s Batman live action show)Hey, imagine if superheroes weren't already established and you had to pitch this idea to a Cartoon Executive..."Well it's a show about a man who has man powers, but he wears a dark pointy suit and he fights crime without a gun. He's so dark that he laughs at burning children.""Not only that, he's lonely so he steals someone's underage boy and makes him wear leotards and hot pants covered in fish scales, then puts him in dangerous situations!""It's not all serious though. The heroes like to have a good laugh at other men in funny suits being electrocuted.""Al Franken will sometimes appear in the cartoon, only really large.""Once in a while they'll take off their underpants and exchange them for Catholic girl skirts.""And when they mutate into 10 foot monsters with monkey heads, their bitches won't notice anything is different."

which is a just a step away from the Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson styles. Bob Kane claimed credit for their styles and many other artist work he swiped from:http://henryvallely.blogspot.com/search/label/Batman

"Legends of the Dark Knight" (available on DVD in the "Batman - The Animated Series, Volume Four (From the New Batman Adventures)" animates the style of Dick Sprang, Bill Finger, and Frank Miller.

I believe it is also available on the Batman Gotham Knight 2-DVD edition.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0519697/

Also... Bob Kane was a great businessman, avoiding the mistakes which Siegel and Schuster made. Thus, his personality tends to overshadow Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson. (Most of the covers you display were done by others.)

Perfect post!And the CEOs would say something like:- Bat is a weird animal. You should use a dog. Dogman, or Hamsterman. Kids love hamsters.- And about his family? We need shows with families. Hamsterman should have at least a aunt and a grandmother, since their parents died.- What does he learn in the end of each episode? - No... This show will NEVER work.- Do you know our network? Do you know what kind of audience we do have? You should do a research about it before pitch something like that.

I have to laugh at the "Bob Kane style" statement. Apparently, Bob Kane never drew anything. He swiped a lot, got famous, then hired other people to draw for him and he signed his name to their work. (I think Crowley had it right--that square-jawed Batman is actually the Dick Sprang style.)

From what I've read, Robin's panties weren't "fish scales" but those crescent shapes were supposed to represent chain mail. Which makes it even kinkier.

It is surprising that you (John) do not make a yearly excursion to tv land to see the new shows, even if only an episode of each. You know, a homegrown version of the compilations the networks did of their new cartoon seasons for the fall, but with the underlying business reason of scoping your own industry. It would make your cable bill a deductible work expense on your taxes...

Thanks for the post really enjoyed seeing these. I really like the color palette of the covers. The color combinations are quite harsh and raw. They feel urban, or better, gives us an idea of what urban felt like back then.

Man your pitch sounded kooky. And I always thought they styled TV comics after Jack Kirby, thanks for informing me. And I actually like the Batman Brave and the Bold, it's funny in this weird sorta corny way.

I think you're giving short shrift to Batman: Brave and the Bold. I'm sure you'll have plenty to nit pick about it (that's why we love you) but it comes as close to true Silver Age goofiness as any TV show since Adam West, and it features a surprising amount on manly fisticuffs for a cartoon of the post-hippie age.

To reiterate what others have said, it's unlikely Bob Kane drew any of those Batman images. He was a mediocre artist but a shrewd businessman. In an age where Siegel and Schuster sold Superman for a few hundred bucks, Kane negotiated a contract that allowed him to rubber stamp his signature on the work of an army of more talented Bat artists.

Also Sheldon Moldoff did alot of stuff signed "Bob Kane." Bill Finger was a writer, not an artist from what I remember. Yes the new Brave and Bold shows Batman out during daylight, smiling, laughing and signing autographs, whereas the previous series had him hiding from cameras like mythical Bigfoot or Mothman.